The Lowly Flea
by The Code Cruncher
Summary: This is a dark story told from Flea's perspective. It starts with her family life before she even met Ozzie, and goes on until the final battle at Ozzie's Fort.
1. Prologue

The Lowly Flea

Prologue

Amanda was born into a loving family, she need not ask for anything, for she had everything she ever wanted under her parent's quaint roof. Love. Amanda was a happy girl, never knowing pain or sadness; all she knew were joy and happiness. Her parents loved their daughter, and did everything in their power to raise her right. After their daughter's fifth birthday, it seemed apparent that they had done their job in raising a good little girl, and they knew that she would do her family honour.

It wasn't until Amanda experienced her sixth winter that things went really bad. You see, Amanda had a curse. To keep the flow of good and bad fortune running straight, every once in a million years a human must be born with the most hideous fortune. Amanda was fated to be void of any good fortune, and have the only thing that mattered to her taken from her. Love.

On a cold wintry night in Truce Village, Amanda was both gifted and cursed at the same time. She received her magical powers, the most destructive element, fire. It occurred when Amanda woke up cold, and walked over to the fire to warm herself. As she put her hands to the fire, it happened. The fire arced into her hands, and splashed around her. In an instant, everything Amanda had come to love had gone up in flames! The fire quickly spread throughout the house, as if oil had been poured all over. She panicked! Amanda flew through the house screaming at the top of her lungs for her parents to get up.

After just two calls, Amanda's mother took her daughter up in her arms, and ran straight to the exit. Amanda looked around for her father, but did not see him anyway, because he lay dead from a burning log falling from the rafters. Her father lay dead, and she did not even know it. Her mother hurried to protect her daughter, but saw as even more of the support beams burned through, immanent to crush them both.

Knowing that there was no hope for herself to live, Amanda's mother tossed her beloved daughter outside just as the roof fell atop her. And all was silent aside from the crackling of the fire. Still in shock, Amanda did not feel the pain from her scraped knees, and stared forlornly at the inferno before her. She didn't understand, one minute she had a loving family and a quaint home, and the next her parents lay incinerated in a fire that was destroying her home as she stood there. The she cried for the first time in her life, now all of a sudden know all about pain and lament. Nothing could be so awful as to be a vulnerable five-year-old child looking on as her life burned, and what she would find next would not be comfort, but disdain.

The fiasco had awakened the neighborhood, and everyone was full of questions that the young Amanda could not even comprehend. But there was one person who had witnessed the start of the fire, and as ignorant as he was, came to a grim conclusion.

" The girl started the fire! I saw her put her hands to the fire-place, and the fire leapt to her hands and spread throughout the house! She's a murderer, a demon who showed no mercy to her loving parents!" Yelled the man.

Amanda's eyes widened as she heard the man say that awful thing, but she could not defend herself: how could she when everything the man said were true? She did not mean for the fire to break out and burn her home and her family; that was surely the last thing on her mind. However, there was no way to calm the mob that was now forming.

" You little brute!" Cried one elderly woman.

" You're dirt!" Screamed a young man.

" You're less than dirt, a bothersome parasite! A flea!" Proclaimed an old man.

"Yeah, a flea!" Cried the crowd, they were out for Amanda's blood, and she didn't want to wait for them to fulfill their fell purpose.

Amanda fled. She ran as fast as her little legs could carry her, which was thankfully enough to escape harm from the tired mob. Amanda ran past Zenan Bridge, she ran past the village beyond it, she ran until her legs crumbled with exhaustion and her breathing became dangerously pained. Her loving mother had given her this last gift of life, and she wasn't about to let some idiotic mob steal that precious gift from her. She had collapsed near a small mountain; to her right were cliffs that lead to the ocean. Amanda didn't know how she could go on living, she was chased out of her village, and who would take her in? She looked at her clean hands and cringed at the memory of the fire touching her, then spreading. The fire didn't burn her at all, it actually felt quite nice, but the end result was frightening. Amanda hoped that she would never again see fire.

Passing by was a short and fat monster named Ozzie, the idiot did not notice the girl until his slight magical aura picked up on a stronger one nearby. It was indeed a child, collapsed; Ozzie could tell that the child had been through a lot. At first he figured that it would be best to kill the child, lest she attack him, and with her superior magic kill him, but then he had another idea. If you can't kill them, make them join you is what he always said, and so far it had worked wonders on a lot of his followers, including his ex-enemy now friend Slash. He decided to try and talk to this girl.

" You seem to have gone through quite the ordeal there child. Please, tell me what happened." He said in a soothing manner.

Amanda looked up at the floating repulsive green monster, but knowing nothing of prejudice she spoke to him as if he were no different than anyone else, " My house...my house burned down." She managed between breaths and whimpers, " I caused the fire! I killed my parents, and now I'll never see them again! The other people said that I was a murderer, and a...a flea. I didn't mean for the fire to burn down the house! I just wanted to warm up!" She continued through fits of crying.

" Now, now child." Ozzie said soothingly, " Of course it wasn't your fault. Those people, those _humans_ are only trying to put the blame on you, because they don't understand what happened. But I do, I understand perfectly."

" You...you do?" Amanda whimpered as she looked at her only source of comfort since her parents died.

" Of course. You used magic, a skill that only Mystics, like myself, can use. I know you might be hating yourself for burning down your house, but don't fear, or hate, your power. Let me teach you how to use it, and you'll be able to prevent such things from ever happening again." Ozzie said using his silver tongue to coax the child into joining him.

" You will?"

" Of course! When we're done, you'll have complete control of your gift."

"Okay."

" What is your name child?"

" My name is..." Amanda did not want to use her real name anymore, that name belonged to a happy little girl who died in an inferno just an hour ago, she decided to use the name that would never let her forget this incident, " Flea."


	2. Chapter 1

Chapter I: Flea the Magician

Flea practiced the dark arts under Ozzie's watchful eye, it was difficult at first, but when she made her first fireball everything made sense. It took her a month to just be able to manipulate fire to her will; she wasn't accustomed to the thought of making fire do as she pleased, but soon she learned how to channel her energies. Soon after that, Flea was challenged to make a fireball without using an already burning fire as a source. At first she didn't understand how she could create fire with her will alone, but soon she understood how she could emit magical energy to cause elements to merge how they would naturally. In this way, she could create anything, not just a mere fireball.

After her first year, Flea learned how to manipulate her own body by emitting and absorbing the magical energy around her. Her first form was that of a bat, she liked it so much that she took to spying on Mystic affairs disguised as a bat. Flea had progressed so much so soon, even Mystics who were born with the understanding of magic could not come close to her skill. Ozzie was proud of his young protegee, that she had gotten so skillful so fast. Now that she was becoming a strong magician, it was time to rally Flea to his cause.

Ozzie gave Flea the day off from studying, something he hadn't granted her and she hadn't allowed herself since she started, " Flea, you have progressed so far this past year; you are already one of the strongest magicians of all the Mystics!"

" Thank you." Flea said humbly.

" Now it is time that I must talk to you seriously, as a fellow Mystic. War is starting. You know just as well as I do that the humans are ignorant fools who hate what they don't understand." Flea nodded grimly, " They attack our kind, merely because we are different. They are evil, and they must be eradicated."

Flea closed her eyes, and saw the inferno that engulfed her family, and the murderous crowd that chased her out of the kingdom, " I agree. Humans are evil, and must be stopped. But there are so many of them, even if every Mystic fought, we would be overwhelmed."

Ozzie let out a proud laugh, " Wise counsel Flea, we are enormously outnumbered, but the average Mystic is plenty stronger than the average human; we have that advantage at the least. Yet we need years to prepare our army, as it stands we would only last a single battle. Not to fear, I have been planning this for a long time, and we still have a long way to go before our plans will come to fruition. I imagine...fifteen more years before we are able to defeat the 'grand' Guardia Kingdom. In that time, I want to teach you how to fight. You know magic, which is the first step, but now you need to learn how to fight with it. In the next fifteen years Flea, you'll be great. With you and Slash standing beside me, we'll be the great generals of the army, never losing to the wretched humans!"

Flea did not know if she was ready to go into war with her previous kin. When she arrived at Medina with Ozzie, Flea was officially named a Mystic so she cut her ties with the humans and adopted her new kin, but she still didn't know if she was ready to fight. She did believe what Ozzie was saying was right, however, and she decided to follow him.

The next day was the beginning of Flea's combat practice, and it was not easy! Ozzie got Slash to train her, since he wasn't a fighter in the least. Slash made Flea work hard, but since she was still a child, he only had her work with dummies made of straw. That didn't stop him from making Flea's life hard, he had her cast more spells than she felt comfortable with, and at the end of the day, she collapsed out of exhaustion on her bed. It continued this way for a year, and at the end Flea had much more vitality than she had before and was able to cast spells all day. Flea was only able to cast fire elemental spells, which severely limited her potential, so Ozzie decided that he would teach Flea how to use her magical energy to use enchantments, spells that affect the mind.

Flea never imagined that she would be training herself in mind and body to participate in a war against Guardia Kingdom, but here she was getting more and more powerful, and there was no other application for her ability. She was learning how to kill people, and she accepted it all. It was who she was now, a crusader against the evil people who chase innocent little girls away from their home after a horrible accident. Yes, she hated those people who exiled her. The more she thought about it, the more she hated them. Eventually she had stopped caring about their lives, if they were so ready to take hers, then why not return the favor?

Thus had the little girl Amanda transformed into Flea the Magician.


	3. Chapter 2

Chapter II: Flea Finds Her Purpose

Flea's life was a boring life: wake up, eat, physical training, magical training, more physical training, sleep, and repeat. This regiment was starting to make life bleak. Her harbored anger against the humans grew with each passing day; she just wished that this war would start already so she could pay them back a hundred times over! After three years of this, Flea was eight, a more competent mage, and a powerful urge to start the blasted war for Ozzie. She knew that she shouldn't though, because if she did, she would just doom her new people. Even though Ozzie didn't look it, he wasn't stupid, maybe a little dumb, but still was still great at strategizing.

It was a tough decision to make; to leave the running of this war to Ozzie, but one she felt was best for the Mystics. At least she though. Slash did not seem to mind this boring regiment, but it was probably because it was all he did his entire life. Eat, sleep, and train. Because of it he was an accomplished swordsman, and still way out of Flea's league. Even with all her magic, which vastly outclassed Slash's by the way, she was still no match for his speed and skill in battle. This was why Slash still flat out refused to spar with her; though he did promise her he would let her try it when she became ten years old. Two years; too long to her tastes, but there wasn't anything else to be doing.

It was fun learning enchantments from Ozzie, although he really couldn't use them, he could at least help her understand the principals behind them. It was the same thing as manipulating the physical world, just using energy to influence the chemicals in the brain. It was all advanced neurology, something of which the humans were still fifteen hundred years from! As fun as it was to make an Imp run right into a tree for no apparent reason, she still had to take the information with a grim outlook. She was going to be using this in battle, and even though it didn't seem fair, it wasn't like the humans were going to fight fair either.

Yet life went on, as monotonous as it had always been, until one day when the most influential person in Flea's life arrived. However, at the time, he didn't seem like much. Ozzie had brought him back after a trek to spy on the human's progress. He found him in mountain; he had just appeared through some portal. He had set three Imps upon the boy, and as they leapt to attack him, they instantly vaporized. Ozzie saw this as another opportunity to make a possible threat into an ally, and worked his magic on the boy. He had given Flea the same treatment, asking him what his problem was, and making it seem like Ozzie was the solution. Of course the frightened boy had accepted. When Flea saw him, she didn't believe the words that came out of Ozzie's green mouth.

" This boy is the strongest magic user I have ever seen!"

Of course Flea was upset, after all, hadn't he said the same about her? She didn't sense a very powerful magic aura around him; he even seemed weaker than Slash! How could he possibly be any stronger than she was? Yet Ozzie proceeded to place the boy through the same training the Flea was undertaking. They were like in a class together. Even Slash reflected on how odd it felt to be a teacher to a class. Of course the boy was unable to take on the same physical training that Flea had been doing for quite some time, but the boy never let up. It was like he was driven by something, something even more powerful than what was driving Flea. Since Flea was already a competent magic user, she was told to teach him how to use his "dormant" powers. He still didn't convince Flea that he was powerful in any right. She still did her best, because when she did something, she never settled for anything but her best.

" Alright, so I'm going to teach you how to use magic now. Which element do you want to start with?" Flea started by focusing on a single element, it was how she started.

" All of them." The boy arrogantly shot back.

This did not please Flea, even she could only use fire well, and here was this brat saying that he was going to use them all like it was some kind of plaything, " I don't think that you're going to be able to learn them all at once boy. So maybe you should start off with just one."

" No, I want them all. I'm not going to be weakened by a lack of resources. If you aren't good enough to teach me them all, then I'm going to learn them myself!" The boy continued.

" Not good enough!" Flea exclaimed, " I'm better than you, and I bet you couldn't learn this stuff alone!" She challenged. If she made him realize that he was helpless, then she would be able to get him to listen and not be such a brat.

" Very well then. By tomorrow I'll show you!" He replied, and took up the spell book and stormed out to read in the room Ozzie gave him.

Ozzie had seen the boy storm out, and went to talk to Flea, " What are you doing Flea? Don't you realize the boy needs someone to at least teach him the basics?"

" Don't worry Ozzie. This time tomorrow he'll give up and let me teach him." Flea replied calmly.

" If this doesn't work, I'll have to punish you Flea."

" I'll bet on it."

With that Ozzie left to continue gathering troops. With the boy at his strongest, Ozzie would be able to destroy Guardia a lot sooner! But if he couldn't get Flea to work with him, it will have been for naught, and he'd have to choose which one to get rid of.

Flea figured that the boy wouldn't be able to get anywhere on his own, and that she would have him completely under her thumb. It was going to great to have someone to bully while doing all this monotonous training.

Quickly night came, and the only one person was not asleep. The boy was determined to learn all of the elements before the next day to put down that ignorant girl. So far he had learned exactly how energy works in the world, and has managed to learn three of the four elements, only one eluded him and he was determined to learn it. It was like he was drawn to it, like a moth to a flame. The strongest elemental magic of them all: shadow.

Flea was preparing to deal with the boy now, since he wouldn't be able to learn on his own, she knew that he was going to have to ask her to let him learn from her, and she was going to make him ask nicely! Maybe that would end his arrogance. She wasn't prepared for what really happened. When they all met outside for Slash's physical training, Flea noticed that the boy was tired. Feeling a smile on her lips, she asked him the obvious question.

" Didn't get much sleep last night?" The boy said nothing, " I bet you stayed up all night reading that thing, and couldn't get past the first page." Still nothing, " Well, I won't hold it against you, just ask me nicely to teach you and I will." Still nothing. If this boy were a poker player, he'd win every time.

Flea didn't have time to be upset, because Slash had just arrived, and was starting the physical training. They had to each move around fifty sand bags that they had filled the previous day two hundred feet up a hill. Even though Flea had more training, and more sleep, than the boy, they both did it at an even pace. It was a contest of will, to see which one would collapse first, and neither was willing to lose.

At the end, Flea had decided to use a small gust of wind to fling one of the boy's bags down the hill to punish him for not talking today. When they were both at their piles, Flea pointed at the boy's pile, winked at him, and let loose the wind. The boy watched as his sand bag started rolling down the hill, but he didn't seem shocked or disheartened at all. As a matter of fact, he pointed back at Flea's pile, and smiled evilly at her, and shot a fireball at her pile. The fire went quick to work to destroying her pile. However, unlike the boy Flea could not hold in her surprise and shouted.

" Hey! How did you learn to do that?"

" By reading the book, idiot." The boy retorted.

The boy had done the impossible, he had taught himself how to use magic, and in one day! It took Flea a month with Ozzie's tutoring to even start to understand what he had come to in one night.

" Who are you?" She asked in awe.

" Magus." He replied.

" Well it seems that I underestimated you Magus. Let's learn to use magic together."

" Very well."

Since that incident, Flea and Magus worked diligently on their studies. Eventually Magus' talent took over, and made him even more skilled than Flea. Where Flea could only use fire well, and only could touch on the other elements, Magus was able to make each of the elements work to his will. Flea concentrated mostly on enchantments while Magus focused on rituals. When Flea got curious as to why, he never talked about it.

By the age of fifteen Magus was already more skilled with magic than Flea herself, and was just as strong as Slash. Flea was thirteen, two years younger than the boy who at first seemed weak. She dropped her jealousy, and replaced it with admiration. She admired his motions when he was using his Dark Bomb to defeat Slash; she admired how he moved when he used his awkward weapon. Even though a scythe wasn't the most graceful weapon, in Magus' hands it was like poetry in motion. Even at the young age of fifteen, Magus had the grimness of a warlord and the confidence of a ruler.

Because of his power, confidence, and natural leadership qualities, Ozzie relinquished command of the Mystic army to Magus, and he assumed kingship of the race. His charisma among the Mystics made him a beloved ruler of the wretched beings. However, no one loved their lord quite like Flea did. She didn't exactly understand her feelings, but she knew they were there, and she felt that she would follow Magus wherever he went.

Even though Ozzie gave up command of the army, his plan was still in motion. Magus had allowed Ozzie to be his right-hand general, and advisor. Ozzie advised Magus to go on with the war on the humans, and he agreed. Now Flea would be following him along the path that she had been taking for several years now: war on the evil humans. However Flea's reason changed: she wasn't following him into this war to get revenge; she was following him because she believed in him, because she was loyal to him, because she loved him.

Author's Note: Now the story starts to get underway. I'm so happy to have MS Word, now I can correct all the stupid mistakes I made in my previous chapters, and prevent any more from popping up! I'll be going to college tomorrow, so I don't know how much time I'll have to work on the story, but you can rest assured that I will finish this! See you next chapter!


	4. Chapter 3

Chapter III: Lavos

What was this feeling that Flea was experiencing right now? It was comfort, yet unease. It was happiness, yet discontentment. It was like turning fire to ice, and it was driving her mad. Dreaming of the confident leader of the Mystics was beautiful, but being with him was nerve racking. She had a general kind of comfort just being around him; something she hadn't experienced since she used her real name.

Could it be that, which was stolen from her years ago? A feeling of love that she hadn't felt since the fire? She didn't think that she would ever get it back. And there was no way she was ever going to lose the feeling again! She had complete control over her magic; she had complete control of her life, unlike when she was an innocent little girl. Unlike Amanda, Flea could handle herself, and she was going to get love back!

Flea made her way from Ozzie's Fort to the construction zone that would be the site of Magus' Castle. All of the Mystics were helping, with the appearance of the great Lord Magus, who couldn't help but follow a man with so much confidence and so much strength. It was odd. He was only still a boy, plenty younger than every able-bodied Mystic, and yet he became the king. It was almost as if he were born to lead. Flea loved him all the more for that.

Flea needed to transform into her bat form to make it to the island where Magus' Castle was to be located. It was a long flight for a bat, but it wasn't too big of a deal for Flea the Magician. She had been to the island only twice before, and the castle got bigger and bigger each time she saw it. Magus lived at the site, directing the Imps and Henches as they did their work. Magus designed the castle almost as if he were designing a trial for anyone stupid enough to try and invade it. He had personally said that to even make it past the first foyer, an invader would need to fight Magus' top generals. It was rather ingenious; this way none of Magus' soldiers would be wasted defending the castle, the generals would just take care of it right away. Ozzie designed the next portion to be his little lair.

Ozzie was not as cunning as Magus; he believed that a huge gauntlet of Mystics would be able to stop any intruders. While he might have been right about that, a lot of soldiers would die in the act of protecting the castle. Losing soldiers was never a good thing in war, but Ozzie insisted.

There was one thing in particular that Magus wanted, and he wouldn't let anyone rest until he had it. It was a ritual room, adorned with a summoning circle at the end of a pitch black hallway that would be illuminated only by several magic flames that Magus himself had conjured up. There was also a rather unsettling statue that was to be put into the back of the room: it had a demonic looking head with four arms crossed in some weird pattern with the two arms that would hold naturally burning flames.

Flea knew that asking him about it would only result in no answers and even more questions, so she stopped asking. She knew though, that even though Magus seemed to work tirelessly every day, she could tell that he was really exhausted. Magus, of course, would not take a break no matter what anyone said. When Flea made it to the construction site, she saw something more surprising than anything she had ever seen before.

No, the castle wasn't done yet; it was something even more surprising. Magus was no where to be seen. She asked Ozzie where he had gone, and he said that he went into his tent to get some rest. All the time Flea had known Magus, she had never known him to take a break. This was definitely something she had to see for herself. She made her way to Magus' tent; the inside was completely black so she couldn't tell what Magus was doing inside, so she stepped through the flap. And…

…It was almost like stepping into another world! The second she entered she heard the high pitch noise a cold wind makes, but she felt no wind. The wind was constant with no signs of slowing down. She expected to feel cold, but she felt nothing. No cold, not warmth, it was almost as if there were no feeling at all in this place. She couldn't see anything for a while, until he eyes can into focus. The world was still covered in pitch black, but she could see Magus' back as plain as day. There was no light, Magus stood out almost as if he himself was a light. Then she heard chanting that echoed throughout her mind.

"_Nalla_, _Nesareru_, _Karesawatoru_, _Lameseamo_, _Lasteo_. Exchange this world for!"

Then a flash of light, and something else was in front of Magus. It didn't look human, it didn't look Mystic either. It was some monster Flea had never seen before; it was a strange humanoid worm, with smooth gray leathery skin and two razor sharp yellow claws on each hand. Its eyes were completely black, and it didn't appear to have a mouth. Despite this is roared in a fit of powerful rage, and seemed poised to take out its aggression on the thing nearest to it. That just so happened to be Magus.

Magus dodged nimbly away, using his cape as a shield to prevent the monster's searing hot breath from scalding his face. In a quick turn; Magus drew his scythe from the pocket dimension he keeps it and a lot of his other belongings in, and swiped at the monster. The dangerous curved blade caught the serpentine monster in the back of the abdomen, and viciously tore the monster in two.

Magus sneered, "Some legendary monster that was; worthless book." He muttered, "Where are you Lavos!" Magus called out into the void, obviously bothered that he could not find this thing called _Lavos_.

Flea stood completely still; she didn't know whether or not Magus knew she was there. It didn't seem that he did, but one could never know with Magus. The man seemed to have a sixth sense about people spying one him, and since this was probably a void he created, then he probably knew everything that was in it. She didn't know if Magus wasn't bothering to acknowledge her presence, or if he didn't know she was there. So she just stood there watching him intently.

Suddenly without warning, the two halves of the monster grew back the missing parts of its anatomy. Now two exact copies of the same monster stood before the Dark Wizard, and were both very angry that he dared to try and kill them.

Magus looked angrily at the two monsters, "So, I cannot leave any parts of you left, hmm? Well then," Magus said under his breath, "I'll just have to disintegrate you!" He yelled at the two monsters that quite obviously did not want to die.

Magus made several arm motions as he cast one of his shadow spells, "Dark Bomb!"

A dome of darkness enveloped the two monsters, and when it disappeared so did the monsters. The spell did exactly what Magus said it was going to: disintegrate the two monsters. There was nothing left. Again only Magus and Flea stood in the void, and again Flea stood there awestruck by her lord's power. Flea had never seen Magus really fight before; she only ever saw him spar with Slash, but those weren't real fights. Now she saw how he fought: with cunning and cruelty.

The wizard went right back to his introspective habits, this time not conveniently narrating his thoughts. They stood there for several minutes: Magus in deep thought, and Flea scarcely daring to breathe. Suddenly Magus turned to Flea.

"Spying are we?" He asked her plainly.

Flea swallowed, and nodded her head, "Uh, Ozzie said you were in your tent, and I wanted to check in on you." Flea said abashed.

Magus walked over to her, and put his gloved hand on her shoulder in a camaraderie way; Flea looked to the side slightly to avoid eye contact with the Dark Wizard. But Flea could feel herself drawn to him, and in a short time brought her eyes to meet the stone gaze of her lord. Flea felt undeniably sheepish as the Mystic's King let go of her shoulder and walked a few paces away from her. Flea was expecting this uncomfortable silence to continue for a long time, but it seemed that she was wrong.

"Flea, you heard the name Lavos. Correct?" Magus asked with his back turned to her.

"Y-yes, Lord Magus." Flea stammered; she hoped that her intrusion hadn't angered her leader.

"Hmmm. Flea, what I'm about to tell you is something I do not want you to repeat to anyone else. I am not quite ready for them to know this"

Flea's eyes widened with joy, the man she admired the most was finally going to open up to her!

"Yes Lord Magus!"

"I was summoning a beast of immense power; obviously I am not referring to pathetic monster that I just destroyed. This creature is powerful enough to manipulate an entire country, and when it was done, would destroy it. That is the immortal Lavos."

Flea shuddered, "Why do you want to summon a monster like that?"

"Because," Said Magus turning back to Flea, "I will use him to destroy our enemies!"

This was great news. She knew that Magus would win this war, and he had shared his secret plan with her first! Flea was overwhelmed with joy and a sense of pride, and it showed on her face. She nearly felt embarrassed at her blatant show of pride in her lord's presence.

"I will hold this information to myself until you feel ready to let the others know Lord Magus!" Flea says in a smart military fashion.

Magus replies with a single laugh, "Heh that formality does not suit you Flea. I know you better than that; what is the matter?"

Flea blushed she couldn't hide anything from Magus now, "I'm just happy that you are letting me in Lord Magus. I-I" Flea stuttered, nowhere in her soul was the courage to admit her deeper feelings to the man before her.

"You what?" Magus pressed.

Somewhere deeply buried in Flea's consciousness was the undeniable urge to just let her feeling out. However she still couldn't let those three words slip past her lips, those three words that can bring undying happiness, or unbearable pain. Flea was frightened to lose her love again, like when Amanda lost hers to the fire. Even though Flea had tried to detach herself from that little girl running from the murderous mob, she still couldn't bear to face her greatest fear: losing love.

"I should leave, and let you work some more Lord Magus." Flea said hurriedly.

Magus gave Flea a quizzical look; almost as if to say that he could see through her, "Very well then."

With that Flea bowed and turned away from her beloved leader, feeling depressed by her complete inability to tell him. It might have been the wrong time anyway, since he was working on his goal to summon Lavos to destroy the human race. He certainly couldn't be in the mood to acknowledge her feelings, right? Flea doubted ever revealing her love to Magus, because of this war. She definitely couldn't wait for it to be over, and she obviously couldn't tell him during it. It was going to be difficult…

Free Talk: First and foremost: I am so sorry that I haven't updated in nearly four weeks! It was more difficult getting used to college than I originally thought. Now that I have gotten into the swing of things, I should be able to get updates going smoothly again. In an ideal world that is.

Notice how I changed Author's Note to Free Talk? Yeah, I read Japanese Mangas where the artists do this sort of thing all the time. Basically I just talk about my life, and how things are going. You, my loyal readers can make the decision whether or not to read this, but the option will always be there.

This chapter in particular was a real drag to get out. I originally planned to have Magus and Flea along in a room, talking about things, and Flea eventually sorting out her feelings towards Magus. But I deviated from that course, and came up with what you see before you, yet I like it as a bridge to said chapter I originally wanted to work on. Expect that one soon, though.

Like Watsuki, Code Cruncher loves video games, but gets no time to play them. Between homework and the eventual working on The Lowly Flea, it's been tough to get to it. Though this must change October 26th, fans might recognize this date, when I finally buy Resident Evil 4 for the Playstation 2! I played this game on the Gamecube with my nephews during the summer of 05'. I loved this game so much, that I nearly bought a Gamecube just to play it! So obviously the announcement of RE4 coming to the PS2 was great news to me. I just hope that my undoubtedly habitual playing of this game won't hinder my writing. See you in the next chapter!


End file.
